cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/4249593
Democratic Gov. Jared Polis called the Gadsden flag ‘a proud symbol of the American revolution’ after a a Colorado student was told to remove a patch of the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag from his backpack.
It’s not uncommonly used in Buddhism. I don’t see it all over the place, but seeing it is completely unremarkable. Just from anecdotal experience I can still say pretty confidently that nobody gives a fuck.
It’s a symbol that was regularly used in human cultures around the world that had no contact. Even the Navajo in the United States had a version of it. But in the Modern Age if you display it openly people are only going to tend to view it one way. And they will give a fuck. And it won’t be based on your viewpoints.
The many histories of the symbol pre Hitler are deep and interesting. But his regime tainted it for most people for at least the rest of our lives and probably our children’s lives if not further.
I have seen it in Thailand, however where I did see it was on much older stuff I noticed. So you got a point, even cultures not really involved in WW2 or the aftermath of it seem like they don’t want to touch it.
The Navajo Nation here in the Americas who are on the other side of the world and came up with the symbol before recorded history on their own. And even fought with us many times against the nazis. Dropped the use of it for many of their cultural things. Hopefully someday it will outlive the stigma and be something that can be used culturally as it should be.
I don’t doubt that they did. It just seems like something anyone drawing would randomly come up on. I am just saying what I saw there.
Fascists tend to ruin things.